Catholic Anger will remain

The public outrage that greeted revelations of the rugby training methods employed in the run-up to last month’s world cup is entirely justified.

In the so-called “Kamp Staaldraad” boot camp, our rugby players were psychologically tortured and systematically humiliated, their dignity trampled on in ways that do not befit a civilised, never mind a Christian, society.

Soldiers will be familiar with the idea that the individual must be “broken” before he or she can be trained to be a capable combatant. Whatever the merits of that psychology, rugby players are not soldiers. If their collective temperament was so inadequate that they needed breaking, these players should not have been selected in first place.

The use of boot camps in the pursuit of team and character-building is widespread in the corporate world of business. Not every civilian “boot camp” employs such sadistic measures as employed by the Springbok management. It is, however, a matter of concern that some employ militaristic themes–replete with foul-mouthed drill sergeants and army-style manoeuvres–when their clients are not soldiers.

According to newspaper reports, one Johannesburg company aimed to gauge their employees’ capacity to deal with trauma by staging armed hijackings of its top executives – a tactless and brutish exercise.

On a less excessive level, most top managers of South Africa’s major banks reportedly have completed training such as “commando-style assault courses”. Need such professionals be subjected to such a debasing environment in order to become better managers or to serve the public more efficiently?

The evident popularity of these camps points to a malaise in South African society: a preoccupation with domination and physical assertion.

While there is no apparent correlation between militaristic “boot camps” and the incidence of crime, such camps feed into the culture of violence that pervades South African society.

Such military-style camps may be also intrinsically un-Christian when and if they violate the Christian ethic by subjecting others to humiliating experiences or enforcing their participation in activities against their will – even if this is done in the name of “fun” or “bonding”.

There are alternative methods of sharpening individual leadership skills and team-building.

In his book Heroic Leadership, published by Loyola Press, investment banker Chris Lowney outlines the Jesuit approach – one increasingly adopted by many psychologists – which emphasises continual self-evaluation, the setting of personal goals, innovation and the development of positive inter-personal relationships as basic tenets in good leadership.

There is no way of knowing whether an approach that stresses the development of a positive mindset would have won South Africa the rugby world cup. We can be sure, however, that such an approach would have honoured the personal integrity of the individual.